'There are laws that we disagree with...': When Mark Zuckerberg was 'almost' sentenced to death in Pakistan

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that he was "almost sentenced to death in Pakistan" after being sued for blasphemous content on his social media platform. 

The tech billionaire made the claim during a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan as he discussed challenges to social media platforms posed by different governments and legal frameworks across the world. "There are laws in different countries that we disagree with. For example, there was a time when someone was trying to get me sentenced to death in Pakistan because someone on Facebook had a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad, and someone said 'that's blasphemy in our culture'. They sued me and opened criminal proceedings," he told Rogan.

The lawsuit accused Facebook of hosting content that violates Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws. The Facebook CEO did acknowledge that the situation was a "little disconcerting", adding that "it's not great (if you're) flying over that region, you don't want your plane to go down above Pakistan".

Zuckerberg asserted that Meta is committed to balancing free expression with respect for local regulations and cultural values in specific countries. “I don’t know exactly where it (the lawsuit) went because I’m just not planning to go to Pakistan, so I was not that worried about it," he continued.

Further elaborating, Zuckerberg reflected on the increasing pressure on tech companies from stricter content regulation.

“The point is, there are places around the world that just have different values that go against our free expression values and want us to crack down and ban way more stuff than I think a lot of people would believe would be the right thing to do. To have those governments be able to exert the power of saying they’re going to throw you in prison – that’s a lot of force. I think this is one of the things that the US government is probably going to need to help defend the American tech companies abroad," he said.